National Education Day 2017: Remembering Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India’s first education minister

To honour freedom fighter and independent India's first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the nation is celebrating the National Education Day on November 11.

From 1947 to 1958, he served as the first education minister of the independent India.

The day also remembers the contributions of Maulana Azad's contribution in laying the foundations of the education system in an independent India.

Azad served as an intermediary between the supporters of Congress and the other section of Congress-Congress led by Subhash Bose. Azad lent his support to Gandhi and Congress during the struggle.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born on November 11, 2018. An academician and a freedom fighter, he was given the charge of the Education Minister for free India. At the time, India, though free, was reeling through the years of exploitation.

He considered schools as laboratories which produce future citizens of the country and, therefore, emphasised on quality education. He strongly advocated universal primary education, girls' education, free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14, vocational training and technical education.

In 1912, he started a weekly journal in 1912 in Urdu called Al-Hilal to increase the revolutionary recruit.

He was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna in 1922.

Azad established some of the prominent educational and cultural institutions today including the Sangeet Natak Academy, Lalit Kala Academy, Sahitya Academy and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Also, the first IIT, IISc, School of Planning and Architecture and the University Grants Commission were established under his tenure.

On September 11, 2008, The Ministry of Human Resource Development had announced the day will be celebrated as National Education Day.

OneIndia News